The goal of the guerilla marketing campaign was to help increase consumer awareness about Sennheiser’s high-quality headsets.

During the tour, a “cast” of six young guys and six young girls traveled the U.S. and Canada and staged “shows” at select public venues -- typically in high pedestrian traffic areas near famous landmarks, as well as retail outlets (such as Best Buy) that carry the company’s products. These “shows” were intended to both entertain and educate, and were heavy on product demonstrations. These consumer interactions enabled customers to "discover, try and buy" Sennheiser headphones -- which the company claims “directly increased the number of conversions.”

The tour, which was geared more toward the younger demographic, also played out on the Web with a "reality show" component -- i.e. a series of highly creative, self-produced “webisodes” that added an interactive dimension to the campaign. The 22 “webisodes” created over the course of the 70-day tour were filmed by the guys' and girls' teams at various locations around North America. They were reportedly viewed by thousands of consumers and played a key role in the online engagement. The footage of these “webisodes” contained planned and impromptu interactions among the teams, consumers, entertainment personalities and other characters.

The tour also included a social media component (consisting of Facebook, YouTube (News - Alert), dedicated microsite and other channels) which reportedly resulted in more than 100 million online impressions, millions of blog posts and approximately 20,000 "fans" on the collective Sennheiser Facebook (News - Alert) sites.

The company claims in a press release that the response to the campaign was “overwhelmingly positive,” but it doesn’t go so far as to draw a direct correlation between the tour’s success and the number of units sold. Sennheiser estimates that the campaign reached a total of 120,500 people in a variety of venues.

"The success of the Sennheiser Sound Tour is rooted in its overall authenticity,” said Stefanie Reichert, vice president of strategic marketing, Sennheiser, in the release. “When consumers hear our products, very soon they become converted to the Sennheiser Sound and remain loyal to our brand. The unconventional marketing avenues we chose, which reflect our company's innovative approach, enabled a direct path for consumers to experience our products. These avenues also eliminated many of the distractions often found in other, more traditional campaigns."

Sennheiser’s high quality headsets are used in contact centers all over the world because companies know the importance of delivering crystal clear phone interactions to their contact center agents -- so that they understand every word a customer is saying. What’s more the company makes some of the most comfortable contact center headsets on the market -- and comfort is of the utmost importance when your contact center agents have to wear headsets for up to eight hours a day.

Patrick Barnard is a contributing writer for TMCnet. To read more of Patrick’s articles, please visit his columnist page.